Has capitalism of the worst kind become permanent in Nigeria? – Resuming a forgotten debate (2)

“You may know how little God thinks of money by observing what bad and contemptible characters he often bestows it.” A popular saying attributed to many people among them Alexander Pope and Dorothy Parker

In ending the discussion last week with an observation that the leaders and all the members of our National Assembly ought to be in jail for openly and egregiously defying the clause in our Constitution that expressly forbids the concentration of the wealth of the nation in the hands of a few individuals or a group, I stated that this was both a half-serious and a half-playful suggestion. Why did I say this? Well, the serious part is that I actually and rather fervently believe that all our legislators, in all the political parties should be in jail for flouting this particular Constitutional provision. Compatriot, please look at the humungous salaries, emoluments and allowances our legislators pay themselves. And then on top of that look at the unconscionable “jara” of billions on naira that they also illegally obtain by padding the Budget sent them by the Presidency. Is this not arrant in its overconcentration of the wealth of the nation in a tiny group? That is the serious part of my suggestion that they all belong in jail right now and for a long time!

The half-playful part of this suggestion comes from my recognition that the relevant section of the Constitution I am invoking here belongs to that part of the Constitution that lawyers call “non-justiciable”. What does this mean? Simply stated, it means that no matter the positive moral force and the degree of public good in the “non-justiciable” clauses of the Constitution, they cannot be enforced by law. In other words, as desirable as a constitutional clause in this “non-justiciable” parts of the Constitution may be, if you take those who flout it to the law courts, your suit on behalf of the nation and its peoples will be thrown out without even being heard. Bearing this in mind, I am almost certain that members of the National Assembly reading this piece and coming across the suggestion that they should all be in jail will be laughing and laughing hard.If that is the case, what then am I making of this fact in the context of this series on the very worst form of capitalism reigning in our country at the present time? Basically, it is this point: in capitalism that is so decadent, so filled with utter impunity as the type that we are now compelled to live under in great sufferance, there really is no distinction between what is justiciable and what is non-justiciable in the unregenerate consumption and wastage of the wealth of the nation by a few at the expense of the vast majority of our peoples. In the main, that is what I wish to discuss this week. But before going into it in detail, first I wish to make some further observations and reflections on why we need to resume the forgotten debate that we once had on good and bad capitalism in this country not too long ago.

Of this I am absolutely certain: most of those reading this piece who are self-declared and sincere socialists and Left-of-center radicals are wondering why I am “wasting” my time in this series talking about “good” capitalism. In equal measure, of this I am also certain: to most readers who are not socialists or Leftists, talking about capitalism of any kind is so rare, so unusual in our country at the present time that they, too, must be wondering what I am about in this series. To both sides of this divide, I say that anyone who thinks that talking about capitalism in its various types is unusual or amounts to a waste of time suffers from both historical amnesia and ignorance of the fierce contemporary debates going on within capitalism in many nations and regions of the world, not least in the heartland of capitalism itself, the United States. Socialists and Leftists in particular must remember that socialism was founded on debates between reform of and revolutionagainst capitalism. Often, the two were posed in the form of a complete antithesis as reflected in the well-known phrase, “reform or revolution”. But in the most significant debates and developments, globally and in our own country, reform was not separated, not shut out from revolution; one was seen as connected to or leading to the other. And for all the non-socialists reading this, it is important to remind them that from its very beginnings, the struggles to reform capitalism, to give it a genuine human face has never stopped, with the exception perhaps of a few countries in the world like our own unhappy homeland, Nigeria, first under the PDP and now under the APC. On this note, let us return to the main line of our observations and reflections in this piece, this being the telling details of the extremely bad type of capitalism, of a capitalism that is absolutely without a human face and utterly devoid of the milk of human kindness in force in our country at present time.

The form of capitalism reigning seriously unchallenged or perhaps seemingly unchallengeable in our country at the present time is so bad that in some of its main structural features, it seems not to be a “true” capitalism at all. In Economics 101, the most elementary level of university courses in the science of economics, students are routinely told that the consolidation and expansion of capital is so crucial that any entrepreneur, any capitalist that always cuts into and perpetually diminishes his or her operating capital will not last long as a businesswoman or man, a capitalist. And indeed, what is capitalism without capital? But this is exactly what Nigerian capitalism, PDP and APC mode, is in its essence. The major structural feature of this reality is as widely known as it also seems to defy anyone, any ruling party being either able or willing to do anything about it: year in year out, in the actual operation of our national and state budgets, recurrent expenditure far outweighs capital expenditure by a magnitude of the order of more than 3 to 1. Moreover, even the little that is left for capital expenditure is for the most part often looted through contracts that are both overinflated and barely ever satisfactorily executed, all with an impunity that can only mean that there really is no difference between “recurrent” and “capital” expenditure in the “capitalism” in force in Nigeria.

Dear reader and compatriot, if you take nothing else away from the dire and unhappy musings of this series, please do take away and bear in mind this particular feature of this virulently thieving, looting and inhumanCapitalism Nigeriana of our predators’ republic: no economic and financial crime against the nation and its peoples, no matter how heinous, is really “justiciable” anymore since the difference between justiciable and non–justiciable as established in our Constitution has been effectively abolished. The worst and simply unbelievable expression of this reality is the fact that ours is the only country in the world, repeat the only country on the planet, in which interlocutory injunctions can be “legally” invoked and accepted in criminal proceedings in order to prolong them indefinitely. In every other country in the world interlocutory injunctions and applications for stay of proceedings are recognized and granted only in civil cases. Those calling for the arrest and prosecution of Speaker Dogara for the budget-padding mega-scandal – and I join my voice to their voices – should bear this crucial point in mind: arrest and prosecution is only the start of what typically almost always effectively proves to be in the end “non-justiciable”. For example, how close to, or how far from conclusion are the cases against Dasuki and Saraki? Ask the courts, ask especially the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who, in the final analysis, must be held accountable for the terrible miscarriage of justice in our law courts with regard to the unique privilege enjoyed by the mega-looters. In particular, ask the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court why he and his colleagues on the highest court of justice in the land have been remarkably reluctant to comply with and enforce the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015 (ACJA) which, if done would significantly do away with all the obstacles to the successful, timely and just prosecution of the alleged mega-looters. I have on the pages of this column myself asked the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmud Mohammed (who happens to be the first indigenously trained CJN in Nigeria) this question before and ask it of him again today: why is he personally and professionally unembarrassed and unashamed by the fact that we are the only country in the whole world that permits the application of interlocutory injunctions in criminal cases?

Lest it be thought that I am overstating and over-dramatizing things in this series, let me hasten to admit that the effacement of the distinction between the justiciable and the non-justiciable is not total, not complete in our law courts. Many offenses and infringements that are “justiciable” are still successfully prosecuted in our justice system and in their ordinary or routine operations, the law courts of the land still function, even if some of their administrative operations are so outdated and labyrinthine that it sometimes feels that one is in a medieval and not a modern court of law in present-day Nigeria. But I do hold strongly to my argument that in the most important areas of the economic order in force in the country, the distinction between the justiciable and non-justiciable does not exist because in the end, the huge mega crimes are effectivelyif not legally non-justiciable. This is what slowly – and hopefully wisely – Muhammadu Buhari and his AGF, Abubakar Malami, are gradually finding out in their declared war against corruption and the mega-looters. With most Nigerians,Buhari and Malami are also finding out that the looting has not only continued by and within sections of the leadership of their own party, the ruling APC but also appears to be tending towards the “non-justiciable” legacy left by the PDP. Every formof capitalism has the judicial-administrative superstructure necessary for its functioning and survival. Our criminal justice system, with regard to the open and defiant protection it gives to the unjustly rich and powerful, is one of the most unjust and irrational criminal justice systems in the world precisely because Capitalism Nigeriana is one of the worst forms of capitalism in the world. The epigraph to this piece states that if you wish to know what God thinks of money all you have to do is look at the evil and vile characters to whom he bestows wealth. I say that if you wish to know how really evil and vile our judicial-administrative superstructure is, look at the kind of capitalism that it endows with the protection of legality. This will be our starting point next week.

In agreement with the penultimate sentence of this piece, not only does the judicial-administrative superstructure endow the oligarchs in our fatherland with the protection of legality but, by this very act of protection, it also help sustain and deepen oligarchic capitalism, with its attendant consequences, in the country. Which is why believing that a change in government is enough to engender positive change in the country is but a tall dream. So long as the unapologetically corrupt bureaucratic systems are left unreformed, ‘change’ ain’t gonna happen! No be curse.